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The air pressure changed, popping in Duque’s ears So to come out of his fears and join in this warantic explosions shook all of the
“Boom! Boom! Boom!” the explosions came one on top of the other
People began extricating themselves from the tumble of flesh A foot touched Duque’s face and ithdrawn
“Careful of the little ones,” someone said
Strong hands lifted Duque and helped him open his eye A pale masculine face peered at him—a wide face with deeply set brown eyes The ot the other one He’s no beauty but he’s alive”
“Here, give him to me,” a woman said
Duque found himself pressed close to the infant A woman’s arms held them both, flesh to flesh, warh Duque but it was cut off immediately when the woman spoke He understood her words! He did not kno he understood but the ainst his cheek pressed to her breast
“The whole island exploded,” the woh the port”
“We’re well below the surface now,” awith thisour air”
“We will pray to Rock,” the woman said “And to Ship,” a reed
Duque heard all of this fro flooded his awareness It was happening because his flesh touched the flesh of the infant! He knew the infant’s name now
“Vata”
A beautiful na e had always been there, needing only Vata’s nah his h huenes in her human flesh He remembered the place of the kelp deep under the sea, the tendrils clinging to precious rock He reer existed because the kelp was gone and the sea fury had been unleashed Kelpto Pandora now that waves could roam freely around this planet, which was really a distorted ball of solid ed in an endless skin of water
Duque knehere he was, too: in a shter-Than-Air carrier attached to it
Out was a place of marvels
And all of this wondrous information had come to hienes, as did he As didhumans Genes … he knew about those ic storehouse of such things, telling him about history and the Clone Wars and the death of all the kelp He sensed a direct link between Vata and himself, which endured even when he pulled away froreat thankfulness for this and tried to express his gratitude but Vata refused to respond He understood then that Vata wanted the deep sea-quiet of her kelpShe did not want to deal with the things she had du these things like a painful skin Duque felt a momentary pique at this realization but happiness returned immediately He was the repository of such wonders!
Consciousness
That’s ht I e system, the Ox Gate, which only Vata can open
Chapter 2
There were giants in the earth in those days
—Genesis, The Christian Book of the Dead
22 Bunratti, 468
Why do I keep this journal? This is a strange hobby for the Chief Justice and Chairman of the Committee on Vital Forms Do I hope that a historian will sos? I can just see so onto my journal many years from now, his mind crammed full of the preconceptions that block acceptance of the truly new Would Bushka destroy my journal because it conflicted with his own theories? I think this may have happened with other historians in our past Why else would Ship have forced us to start over? I’m convinced that this is what Ship has done
Oh, I believe in Ship Let it be recorded here and now that Ward Keel believes in Ship Ship is God and Ship brought us here to Pandora This is our ultimate trial—sink or swim, in the most literal sense Well … almost We Islanders mostly float It’s the Mermen im
What a perfect testing ground for humankind is this Pandora, and how aptly named Not a shard of land left above its sea, which the kelp once subdued Once a noble creature, intelligent, known to all creatures of this world as Avata, it is now sireen and silent Our ancestors destroyed Avata and we inherited a planetary sea
Have we hu that subdues the deadliness in our lives? Somehow, I suspect we have Else, ould Ship leave those hybernation tanks to tantalize us in orbit just beyond our reach?
Ou
r Chaplain/Psychiatrist shares this suspicion As she says, “There is nothing new under the suns”
I wonder why Ship’s imprimatur always took the form of the eye within the pyramid?
I began this journal simply as an account of my own stewardship on the Committee that determines which new life will be permitted to survive and perhaps breed We ineering of that brilliant ene pool From those incomplete records we still have, it’s clear that human once had a much narrower definition Mutant variations thataccept without a passing glance were once cause for consternation, even death As a Coment on life, the question I always askis: Will this new life, this infant, help us all survive? If there is the re we call human society I vote to let it live And I have been rewarded tienius in cruel form, that mind plus distorted body which enrich us all I know I am correct in these decisions
But my journal has developed a tendency to wander I have decided that I am secretly a philosopher I want to know not only what, but why
In the long generations since that terrible night when the last of Pandora’s true land-based islands exploded into molten lava, we have developed a peculiar social duality, which I aanic cities floating “willy-nilly” on the sea’s surface, believe we have formed the perfect society We care for each other, for the inner other that the skin (whatever shape or shade) protects Then what is it about us that insists on saying “us” and “them”? Is there a viciousness buried in us? Will it explode us into violence against the excluded others?